Farmers call on legislators to address 'deer epidemic'

Sunday

Burlington County farmers and others across the state say the deer population is growing and its affecting their crops more than ever.

TRENTON — Bob Lounsberry estimated that he’s lost about 20 percent of his soybean crop this season. The main reason: deer.

“This year, the deer have done something I’ve never seen in 40 years of farming — we have one field we never even harvested because the deer invaded and ate every pod off the soybean field, before we could even get to it,” the Springfield resident said.

While farmers have been dealing with deer for quite some time, Lounsberry and others have said it has gotten worse over the past three to four years, especially this season due to the wet spring and fall, when farmers were planting and harvesting.

“This year seemed to be worse than others, mainly because our growing season was so out of whack this season,” he said.

The issue was brought to the state Assembly's Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee last week, where members of the New Jersey Farm Bureau told lawmakers about the need for help.

“Our members are screaming at us that we need to do something about it,” bureau President Ryck Suydam, of Somerset County, told the committee.

Suydam said farmers like him have had to alter their practices, change what they grow or even stop farming fields because the deer population has grown so large.

Lounsberry said that sounds exactly like what he has gone through.

“I’ve done that already with one farm in (Springfield) four to five years ago,” he said. “It’s still not being farmed. And I have another one right down the road, 40 acres ... that farm there I’m thinking about giving up, too.”

Lounsberry said about 25 percent of the soybeans he’s grown there have been eaten by deer.

“Why farm it if you’re losing money?” he said.

Suydam said estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service show that across New Jersey there were 99,000 harvested acres of soybeans valued at roughly $41 million in 2017. Of that, about 20 percent was damaged by deer, totaling more than $8 million in losses.

“As far as farmers go, $8 million’s a pretty big number,” he said.

As of 2010, there were more than 111,000 white-tailed deer in the state, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Lounsberry said he recently counted 60 deer in a 2-acre field on his property.

“The white-tailed deer has become an epidemic,” Suydam said.

Suydam said the main way to keep the deer population under control is by hunting, but that doesn't seem to be doing enough.

"We can’t hunt our way out of this problem," he said.

Some farmers, particularly vegetable farmers, use fencing to help stop deer from eating their crops, but others with large fields, like soybeans, don't have that option, he said.

Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee chair Bob Andrzejczak, D-1st of Middle Township, said in a recorded statement after the meeting that something had to be done.

“We had a committee hearing in Agriculture and Natural Resources to really go over the deer problem that we’re seeing in New Jersey, the problem being the overpopulation of deer,” he said. “We’re trying to get a really good feel of what we need to do here in New Jersey to alleviate the problems that we’re seeing. I think we’re really going to have to sit down and figure it out and put a packet of bills together that would really attack it from every angle there is.”

Andrzejczak and Suydam said it’s not just farmers who are impacted by deer.

In 2015, there were about 25,000 deer-vehicle collisions, according to estimated data from New Jersey Fish and Wildlife.

“If you drive a car in New Jersey, I think you’re going to agree with me (that) recreational hunting isn’t working,” Suydam said. “The deer don’t have any natural predators, and they’re thriving on the edge.”

There’s also the problem of tick-borne diseases that deer can carry, such as Lyme disease, which is something Andrzejczak said needs to be addressed.

New Jersey was behind only Pennsylvania for the number of confirmed Lyme disease cases in 2017, with 3,629, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Suydam and Lounsberry said the Farm Bureau has created a committee to not only help farmers address deer issues, but also raise public awareness about the problem.

“We’re creating a public outreach campaign,” Suydam said. “The public needs to know this is an epidemic. We have to bring this thing back into balance. The New Jersey Farm Bureau is trying to form a coalition — both municipalities, health departments, conservation groups and you, the state, fish and wildlife — to find a cure to this problem.”

Suydam called on Andrzejczak and other committee members to help farmers and the public take a "multi-pronged approach" to tackle the issue.

"We need a multi-pronged solution, not just legislation," he said. "It’s a very good tool, but it’s not the only tool we need. We need to have fencing. We need more. You can’t fence the whole state, and for some crops fencing just doesn’t work."

He added, "We need lethal as well as nonlethal approaches, and we need accountability for wildlife management from municipalities and open space management. If you’ve got open space in your town, in your county, you’ve got to have a plan to deal with that wildlife, because it’s affecting all of us."

Farmers like Lounsberry say the deer problem needs to be addressed before more damage is done.

“Does the public want deer or does the public want farmers?” he said.

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